I flopped on my bed and spent some quality time staring at the ceiling as my maudlin emotions dragged my spirits into the gutter. Somehow, I slept. On Sunday, I sat on my bed staring at the wall—the ceiling needed some alone time—my heart gripped with agony. I called Elyssa and got her voicemail. "Please call me back," I said. "I don't understand what's going on." After an hour, I called her again. After the fifth time, I gave up. She wasn't going to call me back. As far as I knew, she didn't have a social networking profile on any of the major websites. I didn't even know where she lived.

I called Ash.

"Hey, Justin," he said in a cheery voice. "Man that was so awesome yesterday."

"Yeah, it was fun."

"You know, I want to thank you."

"For what?" I asked. I was surprised Elyssa hadn't called him and told him not to talk to me.

"You've really been a good friend," he said. "This isn't easy for me to say, but…" He took a deep breath. "I haven't had a lot of real friends besides Nyte and Elyssa. You're for real, man. Thanks for being there for me."

I choked up all of a sudden. My voice cracked as I tried to speak. "Sure. Thanks for being there for me, too."

"Any time." He chuckled. "We're gonna go out for burgers later if you want to join us."

"You and Nyte and Elyssa?"

"Ha, like you wouldn't know if she's coming. I have never seen her happier, man. I'm so glad you guys met."

I felt tears coming on again and clenched my teeth to stiffen my upper lip. "Maybe I'll join you later," I said, trying desperately to keep my voice even.

"Cool. Just text me if you can make it."

I hung up as salty tears burned my eyes. "Screw me," I said in a miserable croak and flopped down on my bed. I'd even forgotten to ask him if he knew where Elyssa lived. He would probably wonder why in the world I was asking. It seemed like something a boyfriend should know. Besides, if Elyssa thought I was a monster, what would her family say? Much as I needed to get out of the house, I couldn't force myself to go out with Ash. I would only be a miserable mess.

Sunday passed in a haze of pain and I woke up to Monday. A tiny shard of hope that I might be able to talk to Elyssa had lodged in my heart. But she wasn't in the gymnasium that morning. Ash and Nyte didn't know where she was. I looked everywhere for her in the hallways between classes. During lunchtime I looked but couldn't find her in the cafeteria. Ash figured she must be sick. I was sick to my stomach. I left the cafeteria and went outside. A figure sat on a bench near the tennis courts on the side of the school. Elyssa.

She whirled to face me when I was twenty feet away. She relaxed somewhat when she saw it was me, but her hands remained in a defensive position. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"What are you doing out here?" I shot back. "This is silly. I'm no monster, Elyssa. I'm just a guy like any other. Okay, maybe I'm not quite like any other, but I would never hurt you."

Her eyes iced over. "Get away from me."

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's wrong."

"You don't understand do you?" She said, grabbing her lunch and stuffing it back into the bag. "You're a monster, a creature. The thought of having kissed you makes me want to vomit. You're not even human."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, anger replacing the hurt. I walked toward her with my arms up. "Look at me. I'm human as you are."

"Your kind is anything but human."

"I'm getting really tired of people telling me what my kind is like. I don't even know what my kind is! And in case you hadn't noticed, you grew fangs the other day, and I don't know too many humans with glowing eyes."

She gritted her teeth. "You don't know what you're talking about." She walked toward me with menace in her eyes.

I backed away in case she pulled another knife on me. "I love you, Elyssa. I didn't want to do whatever the hell it was my body tried to do to you. I can't control it. Can't you help me?"

"You wouldn't know what love is if it ripped your heart out, Justin. It's a human emotion." Raw emotion boiled in her voice. She shoved roughly past me. "Stay the hell away from me." A few feet later, she spun around. "And you'd better not harm a hair on Ash or Nyte or I will hunt you down and hang you by your intestines."

"So you're going to take them away from me too?" I shouted. "You're just going to rip everything I care about out of my life?"

"You're incapable of caring about anything. I guess you'll discover that before too much longer and I won't feel so bad about having to put you down."

Then she was gone.

I punched the wooden bench so hard it split in half. I punched it again and again until only a pile of pulp remained. My hand ached. Splinters jutted from between my knuckles and blood ran down my fists. The skin pushed the splinters out. The blood stopped flowing. My hands were good as new. If only it were so easy to heal my broken heart.

Hunger gripped my stomach. I spotted my bagged lunch sitting on the ground where I must have dropped it earlier, so I took it and devoured it. I was still hungry but now I was thirsty too. I went to a water fountain and drank, but nothing seemed to quench my thirst. My stomach rumbled. I went into the bathroom and washed my hands. When I looked into the mirror, a stranger looked back.

Well, not exactly a stranger, but a miserable guy who looked just like me but had ice-blue eyes instead of hazel ones. Those eyes were haunted. That face was very pale. This stranger, the poor fool, didn't have a chance at happiness.

Two guys I didn't know burst into the bathroom. They were laughing so hard that tears of mirth poured down their faces.

"And the bear wiped his butt with the rabbit," one of them said, slapping the wall with each convulsive guffaw. His friend collapsed against the wall, holding his ribs and howling with laughter.

They kept repeating the sentence over and over again. Apparently it was the punch line to some joke I'd never heard but wished I knew so I could laugh along with them.

Something tickled my senses. It was faint, but it emanated from both of them. I reached for it with my mind and latched on. This was completely unlike what had happened with me and Victoria. With her, it had been like drinking a milkshake through a large straw. This was like drinking unsweetened tea through a tiny stirring straw—pleasant if you're really thirsty, but not as tasty or satisfying. My mind sucked greedily on it anyway. The gnawing hunger started to diminish. Their laughter faded as they did their business and left.

I glared at myself in the mirror. My eyes were hazel again instead of the piercing ice blue. My skin regained some color. I had just fed upon another person's joy. I really was a monster.

Chapter 17

A river of icy fear ran through my body. Elyssa was right. I was a soul-sucking creature of nightmares and I would never know love. I would never again feel her arms around me or her soft lips against mine. I would never know the joy of making real love to her, or any other woman for that matter. My make-out session with Victoria had been as fake and unreal as a blowup doll. I could seduce any woman but never win her love. Even worse, I apparently had to leech emotions from other people to feed my soul.

I didn't want this life. I wanted my old life back. I wanted Elyssa back. Tears fought their way back into my eyes. I clenched my teeth and gripped the porcelain sink with both hands.

"Stop crying you stupid freak." The sink cracked and shattered in my hands. I backed away then fled the empty bathroom before someone came in and reported me for vandalism.

"Aw looky, someone's been crying," said a familiar voice. Nathan's leering face came into focus through the haze of anger, fear, and loathing I felt.

I clenched my fists so tight my knuckles crackled like fireworks. I thought my hands would bleed. It took every ounce of willpower not to beat Nathan into a bloody porridge of skin and crushed bones that instant. Something in the back of my head screamed, Do it! You're a monster anyway. They never accepted you as a human. What makes you think you'll ever be accepted by any of them as a monster?

I didn't care if Nathan or his crowd ever accepted me. I only cared about three people ever accepting me and I knew one of them was done with me. Other students chimed in, ridiculing me as I walked through the locker-lined hallway. Somehow I'd managed to wander into the senior locker hallway.

Something hard smacked against the top of my head. I saw stars for a brief instant and heard raucous laughter break out. I turned and saw Steve guffawing and pointing at his class ring which he'd cleverly turned palm-down to smack me on the head. I envisioned turning this hallway into a bloodbath. I could so easily destroy everyone here. But no, that would be too easy, I realized. Physical pain was too good for these people. I had to cause them emotional pain. Even the smack on the head from Steve's ring didn't hurt half as much as the pain in my heart.

Much to the amusement of the clowns, I turned and walked away.

After school, I went home and sulked for a while. I wasn't sure what to do with myself but eventually realized I was miserable at home with my father vanishing without a word as he apparently tried to track down Mom.

Screw everything. I didn't give a crap anymore.

I grabbed some of the cash I'd stolen from my parent's rainy day shoebox and went to a strip club named The Gold Cheetah as dusk settled over the city. The bouncer stared at me then held out his hand for my ID. I handed it to him.

He laughed. "Come back in a few years, kid."

"But I'm eighteen."

"Gotta be twenty-one here."

I pulled out a fifty and handed it to him. He tossed it back at me.

"Not gonna happen, kid. Now beat it."

I grumbled and turned away. I hopped back into my car and noticed two large bouncers dragging a man out the back of the strip club. They chucked him into the grass behind the back parking lot, brushed off their hands, and went back inside. I skirted around the darkness at the edge of the lot until I found the guy still lying on the ground in a rumpled business suit. He mumbled drunkenly about strippers getting all touchy about where his hands went. I looked at him. From what I could tell, he looked nothing like me. He was a little taller and had a goatee. I spotted the bulge in his front pants pocket and reached for his wallet.